Mating Frequency, Fecundity and Fertilization Success in the Hide Beetle, Dermestes Maculatus

Mating Frequencies of Male Crab Spiders, Misumena Vatia (Araneae, Thomisidae)

“…The effect of sperm depletion for multiply mating males is rarely explicitly considered in the literature (Jones et al 2006). Quantitative data on rates of pedipalp recharging and mating frequencies of spiders appear to be nonexistent.…”

Oviposition of Dermestes maculatus DeGeer, the hide beetle, as affected by biological and environmental conditions

“…Also, oviposition in our test was greatest with only one male. Females will mate multiple times with the same male but prefer new unmated males (Jones et al, 2006) and males of intermediate age in choice tests . In previous studies females that mated multiple times both with the same and novel partners had higher fecundity than females that mated once (McNamara et al, 2008).…”

“…D. maculatus aggregates in groups of 1e13 adults on patchy resources for feeding and mating McNamara et al, 2004;Jones et al, 2006Jones et al, , 2007McNamara et al, 2008). Adults of D. maculatus are sexually dimorphic with females having a considerably larger size than males (Archer and Elgar, 1998).…”

“…Both male and females mate multiple times given the chance Jones et al, 2006) and in small aggregations, females may choose to mate again in as little as 20 min (McNamara et al, 2004). Male fertilization success and sperm quality is largely unaffected over a male's lifetime (Hale et al, 2008), even when mating with multiple females (Jones et al, 2007), and males of an intermediate age (47 days after adult eclosion) have the highest rates of fertilization success (Jones et al, 2007).…”

“…Male D. maculatus have a pheromone gland on the ventral side of their abdomens near the fourth sternite (Levinson et al, 1978), which emits an aggregation pheromone for both sexes Jones et al, 2006), the purpose of which is to signal food resources (Rakowski, 1988). Males are more responsive to the aggregation pheromone (McNamara et al, 2004) and only males respond to fecal extracts of both sexes (Shaaya, 1980).…”